Comparison of dependence and harm between marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol. Not shown is caffeine, which is also referred to as a common social drug. Caffeine would be somewhere to the left of marijuana (less physical harm). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

GSK supplies 25% of the world’s medicinal opiate needs from poppies grown by farmers in Tasmania.

Through significant developments and the application of innovative research and development, GSK continues to contract with and assist Tasmanian farmers to grow poppy crop, directly contributing to the word’s medicinal opiate needs. The opiates are extracted from the poppies at our factory in Port Fairy, Victoria and are used in a range of pharmacy and prescription medicines worldwide.

We are continually researching how to develop new varieties of poppy and improve growing techniques that will increase the poppy and alkaloid yields, and make the crop safer.

The world demand for poppies is set to increase Tasmania’s poppy production by up to 50 per cent in the next 12 months.

President of Tasmanian Poppy Growers Glynn Williams is in Vienna for the Commission for Narcotic Drugs annual conference and says farmers in Tasmania have been given a challenge to meet the expected demand.

He says production figures released at the conference confirm Tasmania could increase poppy production in the next year to 30 thousand hectares.

If their increase Tasmania’s poppy production by up to 50 per cent in the next 12 months & Tasmania could increase poppy production in the next year to 30 thousand hectares that’s, 60 thousand acres plus anothe30 thousand acres equals a total of 90 thousand acres for opium production good one Australia!!

http://greens.org.au/sites/greens.org.au/files/policydownloads/Global%20Governance_1.pdf
Principles
The Australian Greens believe that:
1. The system of global governance must be reinvigorated to advance global peace and security, justice, human rights, poverty alleviation, health and environmental sustainability.
2. Major structural reform is needed to provide stronger, more effective and more representative multilateral institutions.
3. The leading role of the United Nations in the maintenance of international peace and security must be recognised and respected by all countries.
4. The international financial institutions that govern aid, development, trade and transnational financial movements must contribute to global economic justice.

Drug abuse is a health problem, and drug use should be regulated and subject to restrictions that are similar to those currently applying to alcohol and tobacco. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Australia recognises that even in a post-prohibition world, all drugs can cause harm and create a potential for addiction, and that this requires appropriate regulation and control. The group believes that all persons suffering from drug abuse afflictions and addiction should be provided with a variety of help, including safe usage education, drug treatment and drug maintenance programs.
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Australia will support independent research to demonstrate that an end to drug prohibition will control criminal justice expenditures, reduce disease and uptake, and that a fraction of those savings would be more than sufficient to pay for expanded addiction services. Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Australia believes that adult drug use, however dangerous, is a matter of personal freedom as long as it does not impinge on the freedom or safety of others. Adult drug abuse is a health problem and not a law-enforcement matter, provided that the abuse does not harm other people or the property of others. Patrons of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition Australia include the Hon. Michael Kirby, AC, KCMG, Dr Alex Wodak, AM, Director, Alcohol and Drug Service, St. Vincent’s Hospital, Bernadette McSherry and Nicholas Cowdrey, QC. On 16 June 2011, the fortieth anniversary of President Richard Nixon‘s “war on drugs”, former President Jimmy Carter, who was the 2002 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, commented in the New York Times:

THE head of Australia’s leading alcohol research body has called for marijuana to be legalised to reduce the harm of drinking.

Robin Room, director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, says marijuana should be legalised under strict controls because the social harm associated with it was significantly less than from drinking.
“It makes sense to legalise marijuana in a controlled market,” he told the Herald Sun yesterday. “We are in a situation where we need to look ahead. I think we need to have the discussion and it makes a lot of sense in terms of, among others, cutting down government costs to have a fairly highly controlled legal (cannabis) market and, while we are at it, tighten up the legal market of alcohol in the same way we tightened up the market of tobacco.”
Prof Room, a leading academic at Melbourne University, is funded by the Department of Human Services.

In an ideal world, Prof Room said teens would not smoke marijuana or drink alcohol to excess.
But if an 18-year-old was going to use substances, he said they would likely land themselves in less trouble after using cannabis rather than bingeing on alcohol.
Teens were “better off” on a mixture of booze and marijuana rather than just pure alcohol in social settings, he added. Alcohol was more dangerous than cannabis because it had a closer association with aggression and violence, loss of co-ordination and impacts on work and family life, he said.
“Cannabis is not without harm but it’s substantially less than alcohol and tobacco in terms of social harm,” he said.
“If you are adding the cannabis to an equal amount of alcohol, then in some ways you’d be probably less likely to be aggressive but it’s a bad idea to add it on if you want to drive a car.”
Prof Room said if marijuana were legalised, among the measures to control the use should be “state sellers” and “state stores” where sales were regulated. It should not be sold in supermarkets nor advertised on TV or at sporting matches.
While Prof Room acknowledged many people would be “surprised” and even “bothered” by his stance, the statistics backed him up.
The controversial proposal comes as Melbourne continues to battle booze-fuelled violence, and alcohol-related hospital admissions soar for men and women.
aleks.devic@news.com.au

How Medical Marijuana Is Helping To Treat A Seven-Year-Old Girl’s Cancerhttp://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/11/27/1244001/medical-marijuana-seven-year-old-girl/?mobile=nc
U.S. medical professionals typically warn against using cannabis to treat children, since there haven’t been widespread clinical trials to study its long-term effects on development or its impact on the immune system. But more than 200 medical studies have documented cannabis’ overall medical benefits, and some international studies even suggest that the active ingredient in marijuana could be effective at fighting cancer cells specifically. Medical marijuana advocacy groups point out that the issue is largely cyclical — the federal government often won’t invest in additional research because the drug is listed as Schedule I, while working to reclassify it is an uphill battle without further studies to help scientists reach a consensus.

Which Strains of Cannabis Best Suite Your Medical Needs?

Strains are in alphabetical order and link to medical studies completed

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.
Thomas Jefferson

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Albert Einstein

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
Malcolm X